By Juliet Umeh

Technology platform, Zoho Corporation has announced a major expansion of its AI-driven ecosystem with the launch of Zia Agents, Zia Agent Studio, and the Agent Marketplace.

These innovations empower businesses to create, deploy, and distribute intelligent, autonomous digital agents tailored to their specific operational needs. Zoho and its enterprise IT management division, ManageEngine, are previewing pre-built, task-specific Zia Agents, with a rollout across Zoho’s portfolio of over 100 products in the coming weeks.

Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Zoho Corporation, Sridhar Vembu, said: “The speed of disruption and quality of innovation in our industry has inspired me to focus more on deep R&D, beginning with AI. Leveraging Zoho’s engineering expertise, proprietary data centers, and shared data model; we aim to develop powerful AI solutions that enhance customer value while ensuring flexibility and data privacy.”

Vembu explained that Zoho’s AI journey has progressed from proactive assistance to agentic AI, with Zia powering intelligent, context-aware workflows.

According to Vembu, Zoho’s AI foundation was laid in 2015 with the introduction of Zia, which enabled predictive and contextual actions.

2018: The launch of Ask Zia, a conversational AI assistant that streamlines tasks like data analysis, customer engagement, and workflow automation.

2024: The debut of Zia Agents—pre-built AI agents such as Account Manager Agent, SDR Agent, HR Agent, Customer Support Agent, and IT Help Desk Agent—designed to automate and optimize enterprise functions.

Also to empower businesses with custom AI solutions, Zoho said it is introducing: Zia Agent Studio – A no-code/low-code platform for businesses to build and deploy AI agents tailored to their needs.

Agent Marketplace – Hubs where businesses and developers can access, distribute, and deploy pre-built and custom AI agents.

Speaking on why Zoho’s AI stands out, Vembu noted that it has industry-wide adoption with over 850,000 global customers, together with 110,000 onboarded in 2024 alone among others.